GCR Q4 2019

GCR journalists now sit in London, Hong Kong and Washington, DC. Given current events, we inevitably had politics on our minds.

As politicians agitate for the European Commission to account for broader concerns in reviewing mergers, Margrethe Vestager has insisted that decisions are based on competition. This includes clearing Bayer/Monsanto despite receiving more than a ­million petitions, emails and tweets opposing it, often on environmental or health grounds, and blocking Siemens/Alstom ­contrary to the wishes of the governments of the EU’s two largest national economies.

Yet Vestager herself is a politician, one who has become famous for her ability to make competition relatable to regular people through rhetoric emphasising fairness. And in her second term as EU competition commissioner, she will also be juggling a less technocratic portfolio as executive vice president for digital. To help understand these complexities, we listened to a panel of EU competition experts for a roundtable, and talked to several more about Vestager’s moral framing of policy.

On the other side of the world, another woman has been tasked with using competition for a fairer economy. We consider whether the new head of Korea’s Fair Trade Commission is likely to have any more success than her predecessor at reducing the influence of the country’s family-run conglomerates.

Washington may seem like the epicentre of US politics, but the 2020 presidential race begins in the cornfields of Iowa. We look at whether Democratic candidates can win over these crucial voters based on commitments to improve antitrust enforcement in the agri­cultural sector.

We hope you enjoy these stories, as well as surveys of the DC antitrust bar and France’s best competition practices.